I like my pasta with lashing of sauce but my wife likes just enough to flavour the pasta,which she reckons is the proper Italian way!
Is there an accepted pasta to sauce ratio?
RORY
When I serve spaghetti, I have to make a couple of concessions - all plates equally full of pasta, but my son wants just enough sauce so that he can say he had some (I think he would prefer none, but momma don’t 'llow skipping all of the nutritive stuff), my husband wants a moderate serving of sauce, and I want my own so that each string of pasta is slathered. To each, his own. The daughters just want some, now, preferably. Of course, there is also the eldest dd, who takes an extra serving of pasta and proceeds to douse it with chocolate sauce. 
There is.
Enough to coat much of the pasta’s surface, yet not so much that you have soup running off the plate.
The sauce is consumed by way of the pasta. There shouldn’t be so much left that you have to sop it up with bread or use a spoon.
However, all that falls by the wayside in actual practice. Sauce might be added at a minimum level before serving and extra offered on the table.
lambo’s got it… 
the bread is for dipping in the olive oil
And for sopping up sauce remains. Diversity people. Diversity! 
Hmmm. I don’t know. It depends on the pasta.
With Penne, a light covering only. You really don’t want leftover sauce with penne.
On the other hand, when I do my special vegetarian sauce with wholemeal spaghetti, yeah, you can have a LOT of sauce. And a LOT of parmesan cheese.
And someone I know with whom I eat pasta from time to time uses a knife and fork to cut their spaghetti into very short manageable pieces.
I am shamed by them. One fork. That’s all. Yum.
I’m an adherent to the one fork and one large spoon school of spaghetti eating. Twisting the fork in the spoon to wrap up a heft mouthful of pasta and sauce… Mmmmmm. And a slice of garlic bread to mop up any excess. My momma taught me well.
Thats the great thing about pasta, there’re so many variables.My wife likes loads of parmasan ,I only a little .I eat mine off a plate my wife likes a bowl. I,ll have a beer ,my wife will have wine. I like some garlic bread my wife has none,but we both use a fork and spoon .
RORY
Sorry, but I think you folks are missing the real deciding factor, which is the thickness of the sauce. Some people make a thin, watery sauce that runs off the pasta and pools underneath. Too much of this thin, runny stuff threatens to spill off the plate and stain the table cloth. Others make a thick, meaty sauce that barely stirs when you tip it on a 45° angle (my preference). This stuff needs to be served in huge doses, guaranteeing all belts will be let out, and threats of massive coronaries ensue by the time coffee comes around. 
djm
I eat frequently with Italians. I can assure you your wife has it right. There is variation but not to the point of lashings of sauce in my experience.
Pasta, as eaten traditionally, is not a main course. It is eaten before the meat and vegetables and salad. It’s not uncommon to eat it only with the lightest covering of oil and garlic and maybe tomato. It’s something you can prepare in minutes for a hungry worker, to stave off hunger pangs while the main course is being prepared.
That said, times have changed somewhat. Non-Italians tend to eat pasta as the main course and largely the sauce is the attraction. If that’s how you want to eat it, why not? Italian restaurants in Australia understand that a lot of punters want pasta as a main and will indulge them.
I love to eat chicken alfredo this way.
It’s a treat I only rarely allow myself.
–James
Well, at least you’d like my sauce. 
Ah, I see you understood what he meant. I wasn’t sure what “lashings of sauce” was.
You’re a scientist. Can you quantify this, somehow?
Depends on the sauce.
Certainly the “Italian way” is on the lighter side as Lambchop suggests.
I’ve spent some time in Italy and it does seem to it vary a lot though.
Its to be expected right?
Personally I like, when in the mood, puttanesca arrabiata. I make it rather light.
Quick and spicy. Yummy. I like it with pene.
But I also like a good meaty Bolognese. Beef. Mine tends to be thick and very arrabiata as well. I like to use black olive tapenade (yes I know its French) to bring out the meatyness. Tagliatelle is traditional and I like it like that but just about any long pasta will work well.
Oh… something I think is important.
I like canned roma pomadoro.
It seems to work best.
Better that fresh.
You can get noodles with vegetables in them, or wheat noodles, which both have more nutrients and vitamins. That’s what I eat.
forget the gravy (‘red sauce’).
Toss in some basil pesto instead.
Is Basil being a pest again? 
djm
That may explain a lot.
couldn’t resist, could ya
The pastor to sauce ratio is hard to determine. I think it varies somewhat. And then there’re the Elmer Gantries who actually preach against the stuff but are secretly imbibing.